The Problems with Eternity

[Jarhyn]

Years change, posters change, positions change, so while I'm sure this thread has ancestors I think it's time for another iteration:

Recently, I finished watching The Good Place (1-2 months ago). In the last season, though, they more tackle a problem with the very structure of "the afterlife". This got me thinking again about the various formulations of the afterlife and how they seem fairly universally BAD.

In fact, I haven't managed to find one that isn't, short of "more of just living normal lives but with different types of problems, in a different/wider/higher context".

But that isn't what heaven is to most people. To most people, heaven is going to The Good Place in your retirement instead of a reincarnation to new forms of pain, work, and growth.

So, let's discuss all the awful things that could absolutely be on offer bait/switch from all the various religions of earth.

 

[Jarhyn]

To start off with my own I would say the one that always strikes me as the most likely and also most terrible is the "opium den" eternity.

In this particular model the deity offers "an eternity of bliss", when in reality they are just keeping you happy while they eat something. What do they eat? Well, what do we consume when we make an AI exist? We throw them through millions of generations, and the ones which THESE gods over THOSE universes pick are the ones that we lash to a system to endlessly perform a single task. The rest? We throw them away, as if they had never existed*.

*unless we generate a log, and even then they are static and "not alive", the closest thing to 'limbo'.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I've never watched the show. 18 months ago I retired in good health and company, and have been living my afterlife since that day. No hurrying and struggling anymore. Things are quite peaceful and so long as my health holds up I'll sign on to this manner of afterlife for as long as it lasts. When that ends I'll spend eternity a bit more spread out is all. No worries.

 

[Jarhyn]

I've never watched the show. 18 months ago I retired in good health and company, and have been living my afterlife since that day. No hurrying and struggling anymore. Things are quite peaceful and so long as my health holds up I'll sign on to this manner of afterlife for as long as it lasts. When that ends I'll spend eternity a bit more spread out is all. No worries.

Indeed, this is the way actual reality tends to function. More, I am personally interested in exploring the theological claims, and the problems therewith, that plague attempts to imagine an eternal afterlife as imagined by the religious.

I recommend watching The Good Place though. The comedy is great, there are amazing strides of character development and personal development primarily, and the plotting drags the viewer through large swaths of philosophical discussion.

The plot is that four people end up in the afterlife, told they are in the good place, (spoiler:

Show

they aren't

), and have to figure out what to do about it

 

[Bomb#20]

I recommend watching The Good Place though. The comedy is great, there are amazing strides of character development and personal development primarily, and the plotting drags the viewer through large swaths of philosophical discussion.

Plus they do trolley problems!

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWb_svTrcOg&ab_channel=DanielClements[/youtube]

 

[ideologyhunter]

I have polo shirts that I bought in the 80s and I still wear 'em and I say they look okay. I think I'm ready.

 

[Rhea]

I have polo shirts that I bought in the 80s and I still wear 'em and I say they look okay. I think I'm ready.

LOL - me, too!

 

[Politesse]

I'm not frightened by the idea of eternity, personally. We're all made of the same stuff that has been recycling through the universe for 13.8 billion years. If we have souls, I'm certain they are of like character. Nothing is truly created or destroyed, and I find that thought more comforting than alarming.

I think the fear comes from imagining being stuck in your current mode of consciousness for all that time. But that seems unlikely to me. All things change. Even if your mind were soemhow perfectly preserved for all eternity, surely your perception and personality would change? It does in fifty years, even more so in a hundred. Can you imagine how very different a five hundred year old organism would be from yourself, in terms of how they perceive relationships with others and the passage of time? What about a five thousand year old organism? Five million? You would not always be a fidgety, impatient young person itching for new experiences in your two billionth year of life!

 

[abaddon]

The fact I'm mortal motivates me to try to live a good life and try to minimize wasted time. If I were an eternal being, it'd be nothing to just piddle about for a million years. What difference would any of it make?

The notion of heaven necessitates hell because they realized, if they indulge a "death isn't the end" fantasy, then they've created more problems to solve. So, pile on more fantasy to plug the holes in the fantasy. They needed hell to motivate people to goodness in life. But I wonder what motivates it in heaven? Probably the lame "but it's ALL good!" (so your choice to be good is automatic).

I wonder how immortalist transhumanists solve the problem. It's technical optimism taken to extremes so no doubt it's their facile: "we'll just use technology to fix that". Have a brain-refitting to solve the long droll meaninglessness of it.

 

[Lion IRC]

So, let's discuss all the awful things...

I thought rational, skeptical #IFLS type people would enjoy limitless learning, discovery, exploration.
Oh well.

 

[Lion IRC]

Years change, posters change, positions change, so while I'm sure this thread has ancestors...

Yes, there's a few recent threads trying to 'poke' holes in the concept of the afterlife.
In one thread an atheist feigns woe and anguish about the idea that zir loved ones might suffer for eternity and sheds crocodile tears over the unfairness of it all.

Yet in THIS thread those feelings about your loved ones eventually give way to eternal boredom. YAWN.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Poking holes...doesn't that usually require a tangible entity? Oh, wait, it's metaphorical...like every supernatural concept ever.

 

[Learner]

You could I suppose add concepts of theoretical science, without tangible substance ... to your list.

 

[Lion IRC]

So, let's discuss all the awful things...

I thought rational, skeptical #IFLS type people would enjoy limitless learning, discovery, exploration.
Oh well.

Seriously, why the lack of interest in unlimited frontiers of space/time discovery in the afterlife?

 

[Learner]

There's tons of stuff I'd like to do and learn/explore. I just never seem to have the time, although there wouldn't be enough of my life-time to do most.

Eternity: I wonder... perhaps you wouldn't even feel or notice the difference between 10 years to 100 thousand years... or "worry" about how much time goes by.

 

[ideologyhunter]

You could I suppose add concepts of theoretical science, without tangible substance ... to your list.

Tee hee. Yeah, my post overreaches. Here's where it doesn't:
Cosmogony, quantum fields, etc., didn't arise from the crazed imagination of some 1st Century ancestor of Carl Sagan.
All sciences are subject to peer review, and where observations contradict an assumption, the scalpels come out straightaway.
The National Academy of Sciences doesn't say I'm going to hell if I disbelieve in muons.

 

[abaddon]

Yet in THIS thread those feelings about your loved ones eventually give way to eternal boredom. YAWN.

Is it Possible to Love Anyone Forever?

So, let's discuss all the awful things...

I thought rational, skeptical #IFLS type people would enjoy limitless learning, discovery, exploration.
Oh well.

Seriously, why the lack of interest in unlimited frontiers of space/time discovery in the afterlife?

What makes you think there's a lack of interest?

We don't face the choice "if you have loved ones or like science then you should like the idea of heaven". We can love what we love and not want lies too.

Or maybe I should say, we can love what we love and therefore not want lies about any of it.

Also, what's with the hedonism? All the "but wouldn't you WANT? but wouldn't you WANT?" Is this what spiritual people do, spend their days indulging wants for the pleasure that gives? I've considered that the best thing in religion is it provides means to get over self-indulgence, by devoting to something greater than one's egoic self. But if that's true then it seems that many religious people have not caught on.

 

[DBT]

So, let's discuss all the awful things...

I thought rational, skeptical #IFLS type people would enjoy limitless learning, discovery, exploration.
Oh well.

Seriously, why the lack of interest in unlimited frontiers of space/time discovery in the afterlife?

You have infinite capacity for acquiring information and retaining it? Or are most of your memories lost in the endless progression of eternity?

 

[Learner]

I couldn't tell you which of the two you mention will be the case - but there could be some advantages with both. (good question)

 

[DBT]

What about the implications?